I have a friend who was sexually abused as a young child. When puberty hit, she became promiscuous. However, it was not a case of her not knowing how to say no. Instead, she was sexually aggressive and even took several boys’ virginity. I am not saying that she forced any of these boys to have sex with her – just that having sex was her idea, even when she was as young as fourteen years old.

She is now a functional adult, and we have talked at length about her turbulent teen years. I was floored the first time she told me that she did not experience an orgasm during consensual sex until she was in her twenties. Huh???

You see, I thought that she was sexually aggressive because her body had been introduced to sexual contact as a very young child. I can understand how, when it comes to sex, it is hard to “unring a bell,” or as John put it in this post, you “do not put genie back in the bottle.” Once a teenager knows what an orgasm feels like, it is going to be hard to sell abstinence. However, clearly this was not the motivation for my friend’s sexual aggression.

I asked my friend to explain why she was sexually aggressive if she was not getting orgasms out of the sexual contact. She said that it was all about control. Throughout her childhood, other people were in control over the sexual contact that her body had. Now she was the one in control. She enjoyed the power that she had in controlling a male’s sexual experience. By being sexually aggressive, she felt powerful.

I have since learned that she is not alone in this experience. Traumatized children tend to go to extremes. When it comes to sex, sexual abuse survivors tend either to become sexually aggressive or sexually phobic. Most people might assume, as I did, that the physical experience of sex was the driving force behind sexual aggression in sexually abused people. However, those I have spoken with about their sexual aggression say otherwise. They say the motivating force behind their sexual aggression is power and control.

Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt